There were once all jobless and unemployed as most of the team in HT world, mostly Malaysian, have shut down their Youth Academy. Main reason…most of us didn’t manage to promote a decent player from the youth team. Lately, after the announcement made about the changes in Youth system, most of the youth coaches are called back to work by their ex-employee. Is a good think to see as we need more youth players in HT Malaysia and with more teams setting up the youth system, we are be assured of getting the young bloods for our U20 & NT. The Famous Cool United (TFCU) did not shut our academy down because we believe in our youth players, most of them are from our neighborhood kampung, we first sent our scout to Penang and we managed to get a few lads from Tanjong Bunga, Air Itam, Greenlane and some from Batu Maung. They are doing very well in TFCU Youth Academy. When they first started, only managed to get 1 to 2 stars, but after the changes, six of our players actually managed to get a 5 star rating. A good sign of improvement for our youth team and they are currently unbeaten in our league game, The Famous Youth Cup. We hope to see more teams set up their youth academy and make it as exciting as the senior team. Wishing you all the best!!! TFCU

In Hattrick as in any competition, I believe losing with dignity is as important as winning with grace.Have you ever been conscious of how you react when you lose a Hattrick match? Well, I play Hattrick along with a group of friends staying in the same condominium. And we constantly jeer at the losers among us. In fact we tease each other all the time, about our players, our formations, our tactics and more so when one of us lose an important match or any match which we hold in high regard. I have therefore been pretty conscious of how I react when I lose and I have also taken notice of how my fellow condo mates react when they lose.

I must say that many of us are like Lee Chong Wei. We blame everything but ourselves. While Lee Chong Wei blames his coaches, the umpire, the line judges and the wind, we normally blame our players injuries, our players forms, the HT-Gods, etc. Is it ever our fault?

We should learn from Nicol David. Whenever we lose, would it not be better for us to analyse the game which we lost rather than give excuses? We should learn from our mistakes, re-double our efforts and hammer our opponent to kingdom come the next time we meet him or her.

So are you a Lee Chong Wei or are you a Nicol David? Which would you rather be?

Eleven players - what formations to play? Should I put the player to play normal, offensively or defensively? How about towards wing? Towards middle? Aggghhhh… I’m pulling my hair out! Sometimes doing trigonometry or calculus is easier than setting the match orders for your team for that next crucial match!

If you take a step back a bit, and look at HT in general, it is actually quite simple, really! The objective of match orders is, you have that eleven players from your team, in order to churn out that 7 ratings that will determine the outcome of the match. Whatever it takes, whether it’s 3-5-2, 4-4-2, 4-3-3, 2-5-3…. as long as it’s a legal HT formation.

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